On Jan 26, 9:34 pm, "simonsister" <nos...@nospam . com > wrote:
> Is it? My friend told me that his 19 year old brother has prostate cancer.
> I was stunned when I heard it. Can that be possible? Has anyone so young
> ever had prostate cancer? Is it worse to have prostate cancer as a young
> man? I just can't believe this. Thanks for any info.
In theory, it is possible for a 19 year old to have prostate cancer.
However, it is extremely unlikely that any urologist would ever do a
biopsy on a 19 year old. Ordinarily, even aggressive prostate cancers
have a doubling time of over 1 year, so if the first cancer cell
appeared at the age of 13, there would only be a total of less than 64
cancer cells at the age of 19, and the odds against finding any of
them on a biopsy is enormous, let alone having any reason to perform a
biopsy. On the other hand, if there were a bunch of mutations present
that prevents all cell death (apoptosis) in the cancer, then it could
double every two months, which would make the cancer extremely
aggressive. If in fact a biopsy is done on a teenager, if there is an
abnormality, the most likely finding of abnormal cells would be early
HGPIN, which should go away in time on their own, assuming that the
boy has normal levels of testosterone present.
Ed Friedman